


Fight, Flight or LOVE

by sociable



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon), Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossover, Gen, Minor Alphys/Undyne
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-20
Updated: 2016-08-30
Packaged: 2018-08-09 20:55:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 13,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7816912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sociable/pseuds/sociable
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You aren't a gem. You could walk away. You won't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Down in Empire City

Toriel had many children before you. There were countless photo albums. Girls and boys ageing in every picture until there were no more pictures. Toriel never looks older in any of them, but her eyes do. You only knew her a few months, but she already started one for you. It's part of the weight cutting your backpack straps into your shoulders. You'd never complain.

 

You have never been anywhere as big as Empire City, and you've never felt smaller. Thousands of glass buildings against a pink horizon blur together and make you squint. The taste of overpriced pizza haunts your dry mouth, and sweat is sticking your sweatshirt to your back. The small hard lump of your necklace nestles underneath the thin fabric.

It's going to be worthwhile. You check the scrap of paper and the black-and-white printout of the map against a nearby street sign- no google maps for you, unfortunately- and breathe a sigh of relief. The sun is almost setting, but you're almost there.

Now is as good as time as any to have this conversation.

Sitting down against a grimy building, you shrug off your backpack and dive a hand in to search for the artefact, carefully push back the layers of clothing you wrapped it in to keep it safe.

It glints as you pull it out. A hand mirror sits in your palm and reflects your face. It's beautiful and elegant, platinum with a white sheen, and on the back a round blue gem in the back gleams despite a jagged crack. Yet it looks strangely at home with your novelty socks curled around it. You took the thing without permission. But you knew better than anything she'd want to give you every chance.

You pull the goofiest face you can, because you know the mirror will get a kick out of it, then get down to business.“I need your help.”

The mirror clouds over, as if someone breathed on it, and words form line by line as though etched by a warm finger. The usual. “buddy, i'm a mirror.” The words were wiped away and new ones replaced them. “are we on a field trip? this doesn't look like the ruins to me.”

“I left.” You hope you don't sound too short. You knew you'd hurt her. “She told me that she was the only gem out there. But I think there's another gem in this city. I want to find them. She didn't. So I left.”

Toriel hadn't told you a lot of things. About her past. About the war. About a whole species. She'd wanted to protect you. But you wanted to know, and you looked, and you found, and there was no going back after that.

“another gem.”

“I saw him on tv. Some celebrity. He's billed as a robot, like a Daft Punk thing.” You dig into your bag and reach for the homemade cherry flapjack you took out of the fridge. You aren't really the biggest fan of chocolate. “But he has this black gem in his stomach.”

“tori'd prop me in front of the tv sometimes,” wrote the mirror. “comedy hour mostly, but sometimes other stuff. i know the guy you mean. and yeah. he's got to be a gem.”

You almost choke. “Why didn't you say so earlier?”

“i don't go looking for trouble,” came the reply. “not if i'm a mirror or a fragile ten year old. most gems aren't exactly on the side of your mom's cause. this guy's probably on the planet to find and kill her.”

The sudden severity of his words is a slap to the face, but it doesn't deter you. “He might be here for something else. We won't know until we find out more.”

Besides, his energy pancakes comedy sketch cracked you up. Nobody who wrote that could be completely evil.

 

This particular skyscraper is enormous. You let out a low whistle to no one in particular for effect. The sun is setting and it sets the buildings aflame with light against a darkening sky. The clouds here aren't anything like the ones in the Ruins. Or where you grew up. Salvaging some good things from a bad memory was always the best option.

You find the apartment entrance. It is definitely not a hard task. A heavy golden door that leads to a plush velvet lobby dominates almost a whole wall. Whoever this Mettaton actually is, he clearly likes to live comfortably.

You walk to the huge desk and crouch down close to the cold marble tile so the bored receptionist can't see you. There's a luxurious lift- that won't do, there's a uniformed attendant next to it. Maybe you'll try it if all else fails.

There are two smaller doors towards the back that look made for staff. “Left door or right door?” you ask the mirror in a hushed voice.

It thinks. “right.”

You slide in, and immediately press yourself flat against a wall as a maid walks past pushing a trolley full of soap and towels. Too close.

The mirror directs you left, then another right. It's a little bit of an adventure. And relying on the mirror might not be the fairest. But this is just the grind leading up.

You've found a grey box cornered by white walls. The staff lift.

Stepping in there are a thousand buttons for each of the floors, but you think of the absurdly jewelled dress the superstar wore to the Kansas film premiere and know you don't need to ask.

You slam the button labelled Penthouse Suite and prepare yourself. The swoop in your stomach isn't just from the lift.

 

You feel determined.


	2. Mew Mew Kissy Cutie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm working on next chapter of highlight reel but its punching me in the face rn. cry cry cry

You're not afraid of meeting Mettaton. You won't, or so said the tv guide you read through at the train station and guiltily put back because you didn't have the money to buy it. He's thrilling a crowd of presumably millions in a stadium somewhere else. That suits you perfectly, but you have the sense to know the rest of it's far from guaranteed.

 

The door clicks softly as it opens. You put the keyring you stole back in your bag next to the mirror, wrapping it in a hoodie so they don't jingle or scratch. You tread experimentally on the tile, then walk forward.

It's dimly lit. The walls are a pale pink to match the sofas, and sconces line the wall, but the main attraction is the floor-length windows. You walk towards them, spellbound.

It's dark now. There are no stars in the sky here, but the city is glittering like a giant circuit board, moving and flickering and brimming with humanity in every light. You've never been quite this high up before, and it's a little scary but you love it anyway. You kind of want to throw something out of the window, like how movie characters drop a rock down an abyss and hear it echo a few seconds later. But that would probably hit someone, and you don't want to do that.

And there would be many someones on the street tonight. You wonder just how many people live here.

And how many Gems. You're the only one who knows this truth. You feel a little lonely.

Suddenly you remember yourself. You fold your cool fingers into your palm, almost to check you're still here and not dreaming, and then you turn away.

The room seems less dark. Your eyes have adjusted to the light now. Is this a living room? You decide by the sofas and the stocked bar in the corner of the room it must be. A place to entertain guests. There's a hallway, then the are three doors. All of them have heavy locks on them, you realise. Not part of the original design. But they don't seem to be in use just now.

Maybe it's not necessary to use the mirror just now. You tiptoe towards the first and prise it open with your fingertips, heart in your throat.

Nobody seems to be in. There's a cord with a stone heart on the end of it- light switch? you don't pull it to turn the light on, you don't want to make noise. The torch on your phone will do- it might not have google maps, but the battery life on this thing is spectacular.

It's a bathroom. It's fancy all right. Several different varieties of marble gave their lives enthusiastically for this place. The hand towels coordinate perfectly. Yet, as you take a few steps into it, there's a remarkable lack of products or clutter. There's basic soap, but no shampoo. A giant mirror, so many lightbulbs surrounding it you seriously question the wisdom of putting it in a room with a showerhead, but no toothbrush or toothpaste. You walk up to the bath and, leaning down, cautiously wipe a finger across the bottom. It comes up dusty.

But of course that made perfect sense. Gems didn't need to bathe. All this stuff would just exist for appearances, or guests, or maybe it came with the place.

You close that door quietly and try another.

It's a workshop. Chains hang from the ceiling, perhaps to hold something up. Blueprints line the walls, and you recognize Mettaton with a jolt. There's a toolbox and a workbench, and- you stifle a gasp- they're Gem tools. You've seen stuff like this in the ruins. Yet it's nothing like it. This is far more advanced, streamlined, effortless. Is he a real robot? Some sort of gem robot? You decide touching something that you understand so little could backfire pretty spectacularly. You back out of the room and try the next.

It's a big room lined with bookshelves. You wonder what a superstar reads, and almost splutter when the light from your phone tells you.

Half the room is anime- a lot of it modern classics, you're something of a connoisseur- largely a mix of shojo, mecha, and the ...stuff... the woman at the desk told you off for attempting to check out of the library that one time. You half-pull a promising volume of magical girl adventures out reflexively with your fingers, before remembering where you are. The other half of the shelving is devoted to Warner Brothers cartoons, music cds and a huge range of movie dvds. Some of it looks recently looked through- the rare first album of mega-superstar Greg Universe is lying on a coffee table next to some dog-eared screenplays.

You mentally compare it to the neat, alphabetized anime shelves.

It occurs to you that someone else might live here besides Mettaton, and a startled gasp slips out of you unbidden. The manga volume sliding out and thumping on the floor complements it. You decide you might as well make a trilogy of it, and curse out loud.

“Mettaton? You're.. back early. Is-is something wrong?” calls a female voice from the back of the apartment.

You try not to panic, and try to make yourself as small and quiet as possible.

It doesn't work. The door opens, agonizingly slowly, and a head pokes in, and your eyes widen at the same time.

She's a gem. She has a poptart in her mouth, and she's wearing pajamas with little cookie cats on them, and she's wrapped in a blanket, but the green stone on her forehead could mean nothing else.

But you're a human, and that means something to her as well.

Her eyes are wide under her visor. “Did- did you break in? Are you a fan? What are you doing here?” Her fingers- no, claws, you realise, and you realise because you really looked, have chipped nail polish on them. They pluck at her labcoat collar ineffectually.

You unfreeze. You had a feeling something like this would happen, but now that it has you're not entirely sure how to begin. You wish you'd rehearsed it before, you think, as your eye falls on the screenplays. “Are... you friendly to humans?”

The gem raised an eyebrow. “Humans? As opposed to?”

This woman's smart. You realise your chances of playing dumb just threw themselves out of that gorgeous floor length window. Maybe pleading from the top would be best. “I think you're a gem. I know Mettaton's a gem. He's...a robot you built, right?”

She doesn't reply. She's looking at you with a mix of surprise and fascination. You keep talking. It's all you can do.

“T...My adoptive mom was a gem. So I'm looking for other gems. Just to talk to and ask stuff. If you don't want to talk to me, just ask and I'll go.” You remember the mirror's comment and decide to leave Toriel's name out of it. Palms up, nonthreatening body language.

To your surprise, the gem's expression is sympathetic. “Your mom, huh?” She bends down awkwardly and picks up the fallen manga volume.

“Is it yours? I thought it looked interesting.” You say. Because hey, it's true.

Her eyes brighten a little. “It's my favourite.” She looks down. She's holding the volume with wrapped arms like it's a shield. Perhaps she's as nervous as you are. Maybe even more nervous. “Look. We- me and Mettaton I mean- we like humans. We- we have no interest in harming humans at all. Ok?” She gives you a nervous smile. “I'm, ah, Alphys, by the way. I'm a Peridot.”

The title(is it a title?) means nothing to you. It doesn't matter right now. You smile back. “Pleased to meet you. I'm Frisk.”

Alphys smiles, again, then fidgets with her coat again. “So, who is your mother?”

She can be trusted, you decide. “Do you know a gem called...Toriel?”

Alphys's eyes go wide. She's silent for a few seconds. You wonder if you've said the wrong thing. “Yes. But, uh, let's wait to talk until Mettaton gets back.”

“Okay, cool. Great. Thank you.” You kind of wish Alphys had turned the lights on when she had walked into the room. “When will he be back?”

She thinks. “About...five hours.”

You hope your disappointment doesn't show on your face too strongly. “Is...there anything I can do in the meantime?”

Alphys opened her mouth, seemed to lose a battle with herself then closed it again.

“Anything?” you prompt.

 

As you savour your fifth poptart, Mew Mew declaring eternal love to her boyfriend in full HD against the wall of the personal projection room, you pinch yourself. It's not a dream.

 


	3. Showstopper

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (mtt is a blue goldstone here, in case anyone wants to look it up. they're pretty!)

You hear the robot before you see him. There's a gigantic bang of a door and a snatch of loud singing, then Alphys pauses the dvd and scurries out. There's footsteps, and Alphys's faster, lighter tone mixes with a deep British voice you recognize immediately. You strain to make out the words. You think you hear your name, but you wait patiently.

Alphys sticks her head around the door. “Do you want to...?”

You stand up, let the blanket drop to the floor, then wipe the crumbs off your sweater. You feel as though you've been glued to the cushions and you've left a cocoon of warmth behind you.

You leave your backpack sitting on the footstool. It seemed too risky taking out the mirror in front of Alphys just yet, especially since Toriel had never liked you using the artefact, but hopefully the mirror enjoyed hearing the anime if not seeing it.

You blink a bit as you come into the light corridor, your eyes readjusting.

Mettaton the robot. Alphys's robot, you now know. Close to he's even stranger than he looks on television. A stark white face framed with black hair and smooth yet segmented armour. His cheekbones are as cut glass as his accent. The gem in his stomach is a dark blue that edges to black, flecked with white.

He immediately offers his floating fingers to you. It is by far the oddest handshake you've ever had in your life. It also has enough passive force to make you feel like your arm's about to fly off. “Frisk, was it? Our little visiting human? Wonderful. A genuine pleasure. I've just wound up a long day of being fascinating, so please, if I'm a little flat, kick me or something and I'll rectify the error posthaste.” He smiles, an infectious charismatic gesture with all the joie de vivre in the world. You glance at the clock on the mantelpiece. It is four-thirty in the morning.

“It's nice to meet you too,” you say, though your eyes prickle with tiredness. “Both of you. Is it okay if I ask you some questions now?”

His expression drops a little. “You're sure you don't want to see some card tricks first?”

Your pause answers the question.

“No, I see. Fine.” He claps his hands together, turns on his three-inch floating heel and walks towards the living room. Alphys gestures to follow, so you do.

He sits on one of the sofas and Alphys follows. You perch on the end of the other one opposite.

You take a deep breath. “What do you know about Toriel and the war?” you ask.

“What do _you_ know about Toriel and the war?” replies Mettaton lightly.

You might as well play his game. “She's my mom,” you say. “She disagreed with how Asgore was running things. He was doing bad things to Earth. So she sided with the humans, fought a huge war with a lot of Gems who all died, and she stayed on Earth. On the ruins of what Asgore built.”

The Gems seemed to be waiting for more. “That's true,” Mettaton says eventually.

“Well?” you reply.

Mettaton takes a non-liquorice candy from a nearby bowl and pops it in his mouth. “Well, what?”

“What else happened in the war?” You look at Alphys now. She seems the more helpful of the two.

She bites her lip. “I... don't know. I'm era-2. I was made after the war. The data files we could get don't paint a clear picture.”

"And she made you. So you don't know either?" you ask Mettaton. He nods, still smiling.

You digest this and continue. “So, why are you on Earth? Are other gems like you? Do they like humans too?”

Alphys let out a short laugh. “We're..”

“We're on Earth because we love it here, darling!” says Mettaton, with an enthusiastic arm gesture that almost upsets the candy bowl. “The gems on Homeworld are nothing like us, no. The Earth is a mere commodity to them. But we sought to defend it. And we have!”

He points to his chest proudly- no, a symbol on his chest. A heart. You realise Alphys has a similar symbol on her labcoat. A symbol of Earth? Humanity? You think of the rune on Toriel's robe, and wonder what it meant if not that.

Alphys leans forward. “So, where is Toriel?”

“I- don't know.” You admit. “She dropped me off near a train station through a Warp Pad. She told me to... not come back.” It sounds kind of awful when you say it like that, and you know it.

This clearly isn't the answer Alphys wanted, and you don't know what to say. You all sit in silence for a second, then suddenly a yawn escapes you and makes your ears pop.

Alphys claps a hand over her mouth. “I forgot humans need sleep. Sorry, Frisk.”

“S'fine.” you say. “Later, can I sleep on this couch please? I have a blanket.”

“I'll show you to the best guest room,” says Mettaton, as though you hadn't said anything. “We can talk some more in the morning, okay?” He isn't actually asking for your input.

Resume this line of thought when you've rehearsed it. When they're off guard. “Okay.”

You might be imagining it, but they both look relieved.

 

You sit on the edge of the four poster, sinking into it like plush quicksand. You're in your pajamas, with your necklace wrapped around your wrist (Toriel told you to never wear a necklace to bed, or you might choke) and your backpack in your lap. You pause, steel yourself, then pull out the mirror.

“Can I ask you a question?” you say out loud.

“i don't know, _can_ you?” Whenever you read the mirror's voice in your head, it always has a bit of a chuckle behind it. “hey, did you go to a concert or something? i heard some explosions through those ice-ee t-shirts of yours.”

“We watched anime.” you supply, feeling a little guilty for not double-checking its wrappings. “A question?”

“i'm all ears, kid. or, you know, whatever.”

“Are you a trapped Gem?”

“yes.” is the answer. It doesn't say any more.

You kind of knew it. You steady your breathing. “Why are you in a mirror?”

“it's a long story.” then adds, “not your mom's fault.”

“But she didn't take you out.” 

It writes what you're beginning to think. “she doesn't know who I am. i could be anyone. and once she takes me out she can't put me back in. kinda surprising she even bothered talking to me at all.”

“You know, if you want me to take you out of that mirror, you're not doing a very good job persuading me.” You can heal the crack in it, too. Toriel's tears can rejuvenate anything and there's a phial in your backpack. For emergencies.

Can mirrors laugh? This one's managing it. “i'll get out of here eventually, human. doesn't really matter how or when for me.”

“is it okay if I ask my new friends about you?”

“you're friends already? you work fast.” the text disappears. “wait, friendS? not just the robot guy?” That disappears too. You don't think you've ever seen it- no, them?- write this fast. “Is there a-” The text stops.

“What?”

“ask you later,” says the mirror, and then clears to shows nothing but your face. You snort, then shove the artefact back into your bag. Be that way, then. You lean back on the plush bedding, then jump up with a start as you realise there was a mint on the pillow. You fish it out of your hair and eat it, then shut your heavy eyes. The chalky aftertaste fills you with determination.

 

 


	4. you ruined the ruins!

You're standing in a field in broad daylight. A cool breeze skims through your hair, and butterflies hover over the foliage. It's a battlefield. Discarded swords stab at the ground and split the earth as far as you can look.

You tear your eyes away. You're wearing what you went to bed in, and your feet aren't muddy. You aren't really here.

You look again. There's something in the distance. Nestled in the moss.

It's a rose. The most beautiful rose you've ever seen. It almost sparkles.

It turns to look at you.

It has a face.

“It's been a while.” he says, as if you're an old acquaintance. Chatting over the water cooler.

“Where have we met?” you say eventually. You can't remember ever meeting a flower before. Dream logic? You run with it. “I'm really bad with faces, sorry.”

His eyes go wide, then he smiles, as though of course you'd say that. “Flowey. Flowey the Flower.”

He beckons you closer. You crouch down.

“I just wanted you to know-” he smiles again. It's not like Toriel's warm motherly smile, or Alphys's sweet shy grin or even Mettaton's semi-sarcastic smirk. It's merely a twist of muscle, or whatever a flower has for muscle. “I know what you're capable of.” It's the most hollow expression of joy you've ever seen. “And I wanted to ask. How long is it going to be until you need to use that power?”

Thorny vines wrap around your legs, but you stand tall and rip yourself free. Flowey continues, not pausing. “Not every Gem you'll meet is as weak and gullible as your 'friends'. Toriel's a bitter coward, and those two? A failure and a fraud. That's why they're stuck with each other.”

“I'd be pretty gullible myself to take advice from a talking flower.” you say, breathing hard. “And you and I have a very different definition of the word weak.” You drop the torn vines to the floor to punctuate your point.

Flowey raises an eyebrow, or what passes for one. “We'll see.”

 

You wake up, and there are scratches on your legs.

If you're scared you'd never admit it.

 

It takes more than a couple of wrong turns- this place is huge-, but you find the kitchen. Alphys is sitting at the breakfast bar, playing a hand-held game. Mettaton is at the oven wielding a frying pan and wearing an absurd chef's hat. They look up in greeting at almost the same time. There's something a little staged about it, but they're definitely looking more open than they were yesterday.

You sit next to Alphys, and Mettaton drops a stack of fresh pancakes on the plate in front of you. They look suspiciously store-made despite the bowl of batter on the counter, but you're not picky. “Thank you.”

“Don't mention it, dearie,” he replies.

You eat for a minute or two. “Alphys, can I ask you something?”

Alphys looks up again from the game. “Um, sure.”

“You said you were a Peridot earlier. What does that mean?” Earlier, she said she was made. Were gems not born, then? Maybe only certain types of gem could have children.

“It means I was created to be a technician.” She pushes her slipping visor up.

“Do all other Peridots make robots?”

“Not...not robots like Mettaton, no.”

“We're unique,” Mettaton cuts across. With a flourish, he drops a rose-cut strawberry on top of your dilapidated pancakes. You remember Flowey's words. _A failure and a fraud._ You try to shake them out of your head.

“Why did Homeworld need a robot?”

Mettaton purses his lips. “They didn't, really. Closest thing Homeworld has to entertainment these days is gladiatorial arena battles. I'm good at them, of course, but it's not all I'd hoped for.” He gestures to the giant framed poster of his own album in the corner.

These days? “So why were you made?”

“To show to Asgore.” Alphys says, stabbing at her touchscreen with a thumb. “So he'd promote me.”

You poke at your crumbs with a fork. “What type of gem is Asgore?”

Mettaton is dusting off his cylindrical fingers one by one with a dish towel. “Never thought I'd hear anyone ask that. He's a Diamond, darling. Made to rule and borderline unbreakable.”

“What does he have against Earth?” you ask. “How does he hate it enough to declare war on it?”

Alphys looks down at her paused game screen instead of you, but speaks anyway. “It's...it's a lot more complicated than that, Frisk. Maybe he was like that a long time ago, but not now.” She sighs. “Homeworld's desperate for resources. Resources Earth has and we don't.”

Mettaton throws the towel aside. “He's too bitter to see reason. We offer him a thousand and three excellent reasons not to target this planet out of god knows how many, and he can't even consider _one_.”

“What sort of leader doesn't provide for his own people?” retorts Alphys. “You know that's how he sees it.”

"And what scientist worthy of the title caters to such a warped worldview?" Mettaton's voice is ice cold. "And _what_ , pray tell, is going to happen when Asgore-" He suddenly seems to remember you're there, and throttles the sentence.

This is old anger, burning quietly in the corner. You're sure of it. You blink blandly, as though you hadn't noticed half the conversation. Believable or not, it's the polite thing to do.

Alphys smiles weakly at you. “Was.. there anything else you wanted to know, Frisk?”

 

You pull the mirror out of your shoulder bag. “Can you tell me more about this?”

It's as though you've dropped a bomb. They just stare at you for a few seconds, until Alphys quickly grabs it and starts examining it. “Gem powered, I think. I've seen specimens like this in the East library spire. What have you been using it for?”

Mettaton leans over you. You step a little closer. You're not all that sure if you like it out of your hands. “They say they're a gem. Can you get them out?”

“It's sentient?” Horror crosses her face. She addresses the mirror. “Hello. My name's Alphys. Are you...in need of assistance at all?”

It remains blank.

She looks at you. “You're... sure about that?”

You roll your eyes. “Mirror, you're not funny.”

“your face isn't funny,” writes the mirror.

Alphys lets out a little gasp of surprise. Mettaton, reading over her shoulder, raises an eyebrow, then suddenly turns the mirror over, half twisting Alphys's hand, to study the gem embedded on the back. “No chance,” he breathes. “There's no chance.”

Alphys seems to be mentally connecting dots. “Is this...”

“We'll find out.” Mettaton replies, and with hard precise fingers plucks the gem out of the mirror.

It flies out of his hands. You duck. It turns to hover over the kitchen table, then light begins growing out of it, enough to leave spots in front of your eyes.

The glow subsides.

He's short and stocky, with an unmarked blue hoodie and a grin big enough for two people. The mirror's round gem sits in the left eye of his skull, still cracked.

He holds out a hand for you, and you take it. It's the new weirdest handshake you've ever had.

“hey, kiddo. i'm sans. sans the sapphire.”


	5. Weather Report

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for all the kudos and lovely comments, they make my heart go doki-doki :')
> 
> incidentally this fic has only canon pairings.

“Can I ask you a question?” you say to Sans.

“shoot.” he says.

It's been almost a day. After the initial confusion, and hugs, but mostly confusion, but _also hugs_ , you get the story. He's been in that mirror for thousands of years. Five thousand and something, you remember, a number so big your brain can't quite wrap around the thought, yet Sans doesn't seem phased in the least by any of it. He was confused for someone else and questioned, then just left. Alphys knew him by reputation. Mettaton knew him in person and thought he was dead. (despite being built after the war? The word _fraud_ rings in your head like an alarm bell and you try to mute it.) The two of them took him out of the room at some point and talked to him quietly about something, and you wished you could read lips.

Your unzipped backpack is on the sofa. On the rug, Alphys is looking up blueprints with a tablet, curled up in front of the fire. Mettaton is sprawled on the other sofa, re-reading Pretty Hairstylist.

You take a last bite of pizza then wipe your hands on the napkin. Shamefully, it's not even your second pizza today. Your newly-self-assigned mission has been to accompany your friend to everything one needed hands to do, such as video games and food. He is, and it kind of irks you, extraordinarily good at video games.

“How did you know what to do?” you ask. “When you were a mirror, I mean.”

Sans taps his eye. “i checked.”

You raise an eyebrow. “You can...see the future?” You've found the phial, finally. You wanted to do this first thing, but Sans had said it wasn't particularly urgent, and you trust his judgement.

“not exactly.”

As he speaks, you uncork the phial and apply it. There isn't a lot, and the crack is bigger than it looks. With a sinking heart, you realise you'll need to use all of it.

“i can see possibilities. every possibility. if X does Y, A B C or D could happen depending on E F or Z." he points each letter out in midair with his fingers, "not magic, just timelines and number crunching.”

Alphys lowers her tablet. “Wait. Have you seen us... die?”

“i see everyone die,” Sans says. His tone is remarkably conversational. You don't look at his other eye. His gem heals over, looking totally perfect. You lower the empty phial.

“thanks,” he says to you, a bit quieter, then continues. “look. i'm not omnipotent. i have to know what to search for.”

“Is that why you haven't asked about going back to Homeworld?” Mettaton says over his book. “Because I'd rather disassemble myself with a rusty screwdriver than go back to that dump, so don't bother.”

Alphys makes an unenthusiastic noise of assent from the rug.

You can't help but be sympathetic. And curious. “You miss it?”

Sans leans back onto the sofa. “nah. those two tell me it's nothing like the place i left. i just want to find somebody.” 

“You left a friend on Homeworld?”

He scratches the back of his neck. “i think we all did.”

Mettaton has the book over his face again. Alphys is turned away into the fire.

You look back at Sans. His hands lace together in his lap. “i'm trying to figure out how to get back into that place, or what would happen if i did, or who i'm looking for, but i can't. there are so many variables. it'd take me months.” He folds half a cushion over his head. “i just need more...”

“Time?” you suggest.

“Power?” says Mettaton, not even pretending to read his book anymore. Suddenly, his visible eye widens. “Say, Sans...”

Sans releases the cushion. “somehow i know where you're going with this.”

“Where?” you ask, leaning forward.

“You don't know what fusion is, Frisk?” says Alphys, surprised. "Toriel never taught you?"

Mettaton leaps up. He's clasped his hands together and his face is alight with anticipation. “Fusion, in general terms, my darling,” he says, like a game show host about to show you the car you've just won, “Is the act of two separate things coming together to make a greater whole. A gestalt. A tour-de-force.” He flips his hair back in an extravagant motion, showing off an odd blank eye for a split second. “What's relevant here- if both will it, two gems can become one.”

Sans glances at you. You're trying to look less excited than you are.

“eh, why not. we've got nothing to lose.” he says, sliding off the couch.

The two walk towards each other, but Alphys clears her throat. “Ah, isn't this room a bit too small?”

Mettaton taps his chin. “..True. We'll take it outside.”

This room is huge. Just how big was a fusion?

You think you're going to the back door, but they walk towards the balcony. It's the same beautiful view, a pink glittering haze of a city far, far below against a void of black.

You and Alphys go too, spectators to this odd show. She's pulled a blanket from the sofa, and she offers you half of it.

Sans casually puts a foot onto the balcony and then steps off. You almost yell for a second, but to your surprise he strolls through midair, as though supported by an invisible floor.

Mettaton flies out, does a showy cartwheel for your amusement, then strikes a pose opposite Sans. “When we unfuse, that Fish Stew garbage had better not end up in my digestive system.”

“i promise nothing.” says Sans. He pulls a slice out of his pocket, brings it up to his mouth, fumbles and accidentally drops it. It falls quite a long way. “uh. I checked that possibility before I took it out. that didn't hit anything important.”

Mettaton just laughs, and they soar up. You watch from a distance with Alphys. They're fighting? No, play-fighting. Pulling faces. They fly up further and further each time, until you can't see them at all.

You squint into the distance.

It's... a parachute?

A giant man in a gaudy three piece suit and an anorak descends floating through the evening breeze on- you blink- an umbrella. With one swift motion, he collapses it, seems to land on thin air and leans on the balcony nonchalantly.

He's gigantic. He'd have barely fit in the room. Fusion must have something to do with power level instead of actual size, you think, because he's bigger than Sans or Mettaton combined.

The fusion spins the umbrella, which, to your surprise, is now a telescopic pointer, and directs it at himself.  “Evening folks. I'm Blue Calcite. No need to get up, no need to applaud, no need to do anything at all, and oh- we've got a hell of a forecast for you tonight.”

“Cloudy with a chance of bad jokes?” says Alphys beside you.

Blue Calcite grins with far too many mouths and winks with his only eye. “Strike one to the home team, friend!”

“Are you more Mettaton or Sans?” you ask. To your surprise he reaches out and scoops you up, and there's nothing but clouds above you. His hands are cold beneath your shoe soles. Closer to his face, you can see Mettaton's mechanical components carefully laced into Sans's bone.

“Which do you hope I am?” Blue Calcite asks you, smiles gone, deathly serious.

You open your mouth and close it. There's no good answer.

You look at him again. There's laughter dancing in his eyes. You frown at him. He reaches out a finger the size of a baguette and pats you on the head with it gently.

Alphys is still leaning on the balcony. “Guys? Don't you think you should do what you said you fused for?” she says.

Blue Calcite considers. “...we've got all day, but- no, no. Now's as good a time as any.”

He puts you down gently, straightens his bowtie with one set of arms and pulls it out of place with the other set, then rubs both pairs of hands together simultaneously. “Right.”

The fusion sits, still floating in the air, dramatically touches his hands to his temples like a psychic from a comic-book, and opens his eyes very wide for something you can't see.

He's quiet for fifteen minutes. His head slumps onto his hand, pretension gone, but his eyes are still wide. There's the occasional mutter: “Discard all those,” “Nothing doing there” or “No, no, go left” then an exasperated “Your other left.”

It's half an hour. You're almost asleep yourself, slumped over the sofa, then-

Blue Calcite lets out a gasp. You immediately look up, and so does Alphys. She leans as far as she can off the balcony. “Is something wrong? ...Mettaton?”

He doesn't seem to hear her. They're in a different world, or different time, and she can't reach him.

“Homeworld is coming.” says Blue Calcite. “We have an hour.”

Mettaton and Sans are both spat out in a flash of light.

  


You think you know what Flowey was talking about.

  



	6. undyne kills a guy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> undyne's an ocean jasper.

A human needs a gem to activate the warp pad. Alphys hasn't let go of your hand since you stepped off. You don't need it, you think, but you don't pull your hand away.

You're at one of the gem places in the middle of the night. You don't know which, exactly. The grass is almost black underfoot, and the rivers run such a pure sweet blue lights dance before your eyes. The Gems are here because it's deserted, no human life around anywhere. Less chance for collateral damage.

Because they've made it clear there's going to be a fight.

Mettaton's teeth are visibly clenched. Sans looks almost pointedly bored, arms crossed in a deliberately blasé kind of way. Alphys's hand is sweaty on yours.

It looms in the distance. A giant, green ship in the shape of a hand.

It's getting bigger and bigger as it descends. You almost bite your tongue. Eventually it touches down. It barely makes an impact as it lands.

A door opens. Two figures high up above are silhouetted in light.

The taller steps forward first, and Alphys's involuntary twitch feels like it almost breaks your hand.

Her skin is blue, and her hair is pink-red, and there's something fishlike about the way her nose fits into her face beneath the eyepatch. Above the chest-placed splotchy gemstone, there's a symbol on her armour. You recognize it immediately. It's the same one Toriel had on her robe.

Homeworld. The symbol meant Homeworld.

The other figure follows her, and you blink in surprise. There's a red gem on his forehead, and he's tall, and he wears a jumpsuit, but otherwise he reminds you remarkably of… Sans. You glance at him. His expression hasn't changed at all.

The woman looks down at Alphys, and her eyes go wide. She and the skeleton exchange glances and stop to converse. You pull your hand out of Alphys's limp grip and return it to your shorts pocket. The necklace around your wrist scrapes against the denim. Are you almost shaking?

Suddenly the woman grabs the skeleton in a bridal carry and jumps, landing with precision not five feet away from you. She hits the ground with the force of a small bomb, but puts the skeleton down with remarkable care. He walks towards Sans, big jawbone set with emotion, but the woman is already walking towards Alphys and you can't watch both.

“Undyne,” your friend says weakly.

“Alphys?” Her tone is soft. She walks forward and takes Alphys's hand in her own. Alphys accepts it. The small claw is curled inside Undyne's gauntlet like it's a perfect fit. “You don't… oh, man, I'm so glad it's me that found you. So glad.”

Alphys's face is crumpling. She just nods.

“I presume you're not here for sightseeing?” says Mettaton pointedly, striding forward to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Alphys. He crosses his arms. “Anyone with your allegiance is not welcome on our planet.”

She just looks at him, then returns her gaze to Alphys as though he's not worth bothering with. “Asgore said you and him disagreed, but he still trusts you. He wants you back. He's been looking everywhere for you.”

“He has?” says Alphys hoarsely. But she's pulled her hand away.

You look to the left. Sans and the taller skeleton have gone away from the group. You can't hear their conversation, but you can see it, just in the way they gesture. They've been waiting for this a long time.

Undyne hasn't seen you yet and you especially don't want her to see you now. You back away a little, closer to a patch of foliage.

“You know it's your responsibility,” says Undyne, her eyes bright. “You're our last hope. Our best hope. Even he,” she jerks a dismissive thumb at Mettaton, “made Gems' lives more bearable. But you two ran.” A little hardness has crept into her voice.

“You're talking about things you don't understand,” Mettaton replies, and there's something ugly in the way he spits out the syllables. “Now, we asked you to leave.”

Suddenly there's a glowing blue spear next to his throat.

“I'm not leaving.” Undyne snarls. “And everyone here is coming with me. You care about this planet more than your own species, tell Asgore. Tell him to his face.”

There's a click, and there's an arm cannon tucked under Undyne's throat. “We'll tell him the truth, then.”

They brawl. Slide, dive, duck, blast. It's so quick you can barely keep track of it. Undyne is, you realize, a far more honourable fighter than Mettaton. Alphys has stumbled back, blue light reflecting on her visor. Sans just watches. The taller skeleton seems to want to intervene, tensing every time there's a gap between the two, but he pretty clearly has no idea where to start.

Then Mettaton slides out of the fray, holding a spear. “Missed!” he crows, and pauses just long enough to hold it up tauntingly-

-that a second spear finds its home in his chest.

His mouth opens but no sound comes out. He slowly looks down at the spear. Mettaton's legs slowly sag, then there's a muffled boom and he slumps over entirely, flat on the grass. His mechanical eyes are still open, but all the light in them is gone.

Undyne strides forward, throwing her last spear aside, and bends down to pick something up. His gem. She picks up Mettaton's body with total ease and slings it over her shoulder like it's a potato sack. "He's going back, with or without you."

Alphys sighs, and she shuffles forwards. Sans and the taller skeleton follow, but Sans looks back at where you were for a split second.

Were. When the door closes, you've already run into the ship and slipped into the shadows.

 


	7. expecting someone taller

You sit in the shadows for about ten minutes until you think the coast is clear. The ship is vast, a rabbit's warren of jade-coloured circuitry and strange devices. You get lost and then get lost again, until finally-  
There's a window up ahead, and- you're relieved- Sans and the second shipmember. Undyne is nowhere to be seen. The two of them are sitting at some sort of table laden with blueprints. The sky outside the window isn't sky at all. The black void of space is all there is. You try not to stare too long.  
“Psst,” you hiss to Sans, crouching near him under a chunk of circuitry.  
He waves. “Hey.” Not even attempting to be discreet, he jabs a thumb at the taller skeleton. “Frisk, this,” says Sans, with the air of one introducing the president, “Is Papyrus.”    
“Nice to meet you,” you say, standing up and sticking your hand out. Papyrus takes it regally. “A pleasure! I don't recall seeing you on the way here. Did you work on the engine core?”  
You make a mental note to tear up your weird handshake list. "Yep."  
He pauses. “What…. type of gem are you?” he asks, smile threaded with social anxiety. You feel a kinship with this guy already.  
Sans mouths _his eyesight's not great_ behind you.  
“I'm a...Charoite?” you say quickly. You're ninety percent certain you just made that up.  
Papyrus straightens up. “That's a human, isn't it.” he says to Sans flatly.  
“There is a small possibility,” says Sans, not even vaguely contrite.  
“Sans!” exclaims Papyrus, then faces you almost huffily. “I retract my handshake, human.”  
“Can we be friends? I don't want to fight you,” you say, holding up your hands to show you're unarmed.  
His expression wavers but doesn't change. “Humans are not Gems' friends,” insists Papyrus. He pulls a bone out of his gem and steps in front of Sans. “Step back, brother. It could kill you with its mind-reading powers.”  
Sans walks around him with ease. “This particular human helped me escape the mirror, Papyrus. They're cool.”  
“Really?” says Papyrus. He drops the bone and it disappears into thin air. “Well then! I retract my retraction!”  
“Great,” you say, and you mean it.  
Papyrus gives you an affirmative smile, drapes his cape over his shoulder(a cape you're pretty sure he didn't have before) and returns to his original task, some sort of detailed schematics that remind you a little of a puzzle.  
Sans addresses you quietly. “Cool, isn't he?”  
You nod. You might be imagining it, but Papyrus seems to be grinning a little wider in the corner of your eye. “How'd you know each other?”  
“He was my bodyguard. Closest thing to a brother I've ever had.”  
A ruby and a sapphire. That fit together perfectly, you think. “And you got separated in the war.”  
Sans nods. “In more than one way. We used to fuse to make his job easier. Something about me having no self-preservation instincts at all.”  
Yeah, that sounded about right. You consider. “You're taking this all really well.”  
“Future vision, remember? I've been living in every future we meet again for the past thousand years.” Sans sounds almost wistful, but he suddenly grins a bit wider. “Big guy's on your right after two lefts from this doorway. Alphys will find you herself.” He winks. “Unless you fall over your own shoelaces and break your nose.”

  
You thank him, then set off down the corridor. After a few steps you pause, bend down and re-tie your shoelace, then start running again.  
  
Whatever's in the glowing green containment cell, it's not Mettaton.  
They're the same size as Alphys, maybe a few inches taller. They wear a white robe, long colourless hair falling down their back. It sways from side to side as they pace.  
After a few seconds, the Gem makes a run directly at the solid cell wall. The wall wins. They huddle over, groaning a little.  
“Are you okay?” you can't help but ask.  
They look up at you with a face so pale it's almost translucent, and their body untwists, fabric puckering at the heart cutout. The two of you gasp at the same time. You know that gemstone.  
"Frisk," says Mettaton, in a completely average voice that doesn't suit him at all, "Frisk. Thank god you're here." He puts his face as close up to the wall as possible. You see yourself reflected in his hollow eyes. "Could you get me out of here? This vile technology doesn't work on human bodies."  
You experimentally stick a hair, then a finger, then a hand through the force field door. He's right- it feels as though it's not even there. You grab Mettaton by the sleeve and pull him through. He yelps a bit, but soon he's on the ground in front of you.  
He breathes out, quivers a little, then straightens up. His small hand clasps your shoulder. "Thank you."  
He turns on his heel and runs directly through the ship wall, phasing through it like it's not even there. You blink.  
  
Half a second later, sirens start going off. Wall Breach. Wall Breach.  
A seven foot tall robot ploughs through the wall, leaving a gigantic crater.  
Your eyes focus behind him. No, he ploughed through several walls, leaving a spectacular amount of damage in his wake. Mettaton spits a bit of circuitry out neatly and strikes several poses in succession. His happiness is contagious, and you act along with him, swept into the moment. He picks you up and swings you around for a few minutes while you both laugh, then he returns you to the floor.

“Where do you suppose we'll find Undyne?” he says, surveying the rest of the corridor.  
Another clump of wires falls with a small thud out of what used to be a computer array. “I think she'll find us.”


	8. Just mad cause you're single

As it turns out, at the end of the corridor is something very interesting indeed. A giant glowing yellow orb on a plinth sits in the middle of the room, surrounded by tubing. It radiates power, and you feel the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. The raw energy fills you up, and you feel determined.

“This looks important.” you say. “Maybe don't break it?”

“That's probably wise,” admits Mettaton, then he breathes in and steps in front of you. There's the sound of footsteps, both from left and right.

You almost laugh. It's a bit like a wrestling match comeback. In one corner, Undyne powers in then stops cold, Alphys looking moderately panicked over her shoulder. In the other, Papyrus and Sans, the former staring at the wreckage with wide eyes and the latter nonchalant. You walk towards Sans. Undyne doesn't seem to have spotted you, her eyes fixed on Mettaton.

“You want to lose _again_?!” says Undyne, summoning a spear. She grins. “Fine!”

“Wait, that's… Mettaton?” interjects Papyrus. “Would now be a bad time to ask you to sign this holocopy of your autobiograp-” his last words trail into nothingness as Undyne gives him a look.

“I'll sign it after I've knocked your boss unconscious,” Mettaton says. “Hey, Undyne, do you want to know the best part?” He pirouettes, then sinks into a standing bow. “All of this was made by your girlfriend, so you can't even be mad about it.”

Undyne scowls more impressively than you've ever seen anyone scowl. “Papyrus, help me get rid of this guy.”

Sans intervenes. “if you fuse with Papyrus, i'll fuse with Mettaton.” he shrugs. “this thing's gotta be vaguely fair, y'know?” There's unmistakably a chuckle in his voice.

“That's true,” says Papyrus, relief in his voice. You get the impression he doesn't really want to choose sides.

 

There's a hand on your shoulder and you jump suddenly. It's Alphys. “We should get out of the way.”

Papyrus gestures for you to go. He's watching the circling fighters intently.

You, Sans and Alphys head up to what looks like a control room. Alphys sits in the control chair almost sheepishly, but looks at the devices like she's used to using them. Sans sits in another chair and shoves his feet on the dashboard. You sit in the last, and breathe out a bit.

The fight has started. You hear a lot of muffled crashes, blasts and things breaking, but most prominently is the sound of Mettaton singing a song titled 'Oh True Love' with audio accompaniment. This does not surprise you in the slightest.

You all sit in silence for a few minutes, listening to the song through the walls, the ship floating in space. “How did Undyne and Papyrus know we were here?”

“They were monitoring this planet for gem activity. One of the ruins was tampered with. It let off enough of a distinct Homeworld energy signature to be tracked.” says Alphys, running what looks to be a diagnostics check.

 

“Sealed ruins?” You say. Your stomach flips over. Toriel never cared for exploring the Ruins, but there is something you took alone from a particular cavern.

It's an hourglass, a gold-accented hourglass encased in a tiny glass bubble. The sands inside it are beautiful, tiny purple gem shards that draw to you like nothing you've ever seen.

You knew you had to have it. So you took it.

Made it into a necklace.

It's looped on your wrist now.

You sit and think, for a while.

You're not sure how long it is until Mettaton shows up, but he's impossible to miss when he does. He rips the door off its hinges, apparently just for the hell of it, and he's smirking like a cat in a canary warehouse. Despite this, his arm has been completely torn off and there's scratches and dents all over him. Papyrus follows a few steps behind, gently holding a black speckled bubble with Undyne's gem inside it between his hands.

No one says anything. Mettaton's smirk droops. “Right. Alphys, can you get us home?”

“Easily,” she says flatly, then looks down at the console. “What will we do with Undyne?”

“Drop her in a hole and never look back?” suggests Mettaton. He moves to cross his arms, then seems to realise he has only one. “No, wishful thinking.”

“We can keep her bubbled for a while, but Asgore's going to realise she's missing at some point,” says Alphys, tapping in coordinates with swift fingers. “Then he'll send someone else.”

“I'm not sure he has enough troops to justify that,” says Mettaton, but he's frowning. He turns around. “How about you, Sans? Papyrus? What do you want to do?”

“wouldn't mind staying on Earth for a bit,” says Sans. “aside from being near-eternally imprisoned it was pretty good. kinda want to know what hot dogs taste like. but i don't really mind. Papyrus?”

“I… don't know,” says Papyrus, stroking his large jaw. “What's Earth like? Anything I'd appreciate?”

“they have these impossible puzzle things called rubik's cubes.”

Papyrus's eyes light up. “Do they now?”

“If you hate it, the warp's easily fixable. You can go back anytime.” says Alphys. Her fingers are slowing down, fumbling on the keys, but her tone is normal.

“I'll take her back,” you say. You've been quiet for some time. Figuring out how best to say it. “Undyne. I'll take her back to Homeworld in this ship. I want to see Asgore. I want to talk to him.”

Alphys turns around in her chair. She's biting her lip. “Frisk, that's not...”

“Well. If any human can do it, it's you,” says Mettaton with an encouraging smile, as though that settles the matter.

“Asgore still hates humans. You won't be taken prisoner. Homeworld doesn't have food, for one thing. He'll kill you,” continues Alphys.

You reach out for her hand and squeeze it. She falls silent.

“Human, we just met...” says Papyrus, clearly disappointed.

“And we'll meet again,” you promise.

Sans claps you on the shoulder. “kid, you know yourself.” He winks. “do what I would do.”

 

After Alphys lands the ship on a hill, daybreak setting over the clouds, you all hug, yellow and black and blue and red all wrapped around pink stripes, and you think about it with every step as you climb back in with Undyne's bubble at your fingertips.

The coordinates are all set. You know where to go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hourglass is based on the artefact from the pilot/Steven and The Stevens!


	9. war and glory

The ship lands itself as programmed in an airfield. The instant you hear the thud you're off, prising open the door and running as fast as you can. There's no way you'd ever pass inspection here and you have no intent to try.

You run straight through a glowing fence- anti Gem tech does nothing to humans, you know- then crouch down to catch your breath. You turn around to examine what you left. The airfield is full of other ships shaped like hands, and some other podlike ones - you feel a little disappointed when you see no feet ships. Gems are working on the ships, fixing the broken ones with speed that makes you gasp. The air is stale on your face. Under your feet is nothing but concrete and rubber and glass.

You slump back and stare into the city. You're only a few feet away from stepping into it.

It looks like the ruins. The sky is a light purple, and it stretches as far as you can see. Floating buildings that don't even vaguely obey the laws of physics are patterned against the horizon, glowing like cut jewels. The sun flames red in the sky, and you feel sweat beading under your sleeves. You figure it could be far worse. At least this completely alien planet has breathable air on it.

Where would Asgore be? You stuff your hands into your short pockets and start walking.

You try to stop yourself from staring at the passing gems. To stare at them would be to invite them to stare back, and that would be disastrous. You knew how people worked.

Still. It's hard. Everything is cool and sleek and shimmering. Even the ground you're trying so hard to stare at is fascinating- it seems to be absorbing the dirt from your shoes as you walk on it.

Something catches your eye, and you slow down. It's a statue, a modest sized statue of a horned figure holding something in its arms. It's rough dark metal, but there's a white diamond etched over where its heart would be. The figure cradled in its arms looks more humanoid. There's a purple circle drawn over its throat.

There's a plaque on the base, surprisingly low-tech for the Homeworld you've seen. You bend forward and examine it. It has different tooled handwriting for each line.

 

_Asriel was the son of the Diamonds. His 'birth' marked the start of happiest time we had ever known._

_When he thought himself wise enough, Asriel went to Earth. Exploring a kindergarden from a war so old scarce anyone is alive to remember it, he found a leftover gem, newly emerged._

_Chara and Asriel became the best of friends._

_Too soon, desperate to aid their people in the worsening resource crisis, they went back to Earth to bargain with the humans._

_The simple mistake of brash youth..._

_Their shards were never found._

  


_Asgore will set us free._

 

You shiver and step back.

To the side of the statue, you suddenly notice the small figure standing attendant.

For a split second you think it's the small pale Gem that became Mettaton, but their gem's where their ear would be, glistening through strands of hair, and the Homeworld rune is embroidered in black thread on the front of their robe. Still, they're almost identical...

You're glad to stop looking at the statue or the plaque. “Hi. What's your name?” You ask. You endeavour to hold their gaze, but fail.

“napstablook,” they reply simply. The faraway tone explains the calmness- they haven't noticed you're a human.

“Do you work for Asgore?”

“yes.” They smile at something you can't see- a thought, maybe.

“Could you release this somewhere else?” you say, presenting the bubble.

The Gem reaches out for it automatically and cups white hands around the dark glittering bubble. Then there's a jolt, maybe even a spark of recognition in their watery eyes, but you might just have imagined it. Napstablook looks at it, and then you, surprisingly intensely.

“I'm here to talk to Asgore,” you say, then mouth 'he's fine'.

Napstablook pulls at the bubble- it disappears, presumably now somewhere else. “then i'll show you the way... as best i can,” they say, putting their now-empty hands in their robe sleeves, and begin to walk. You follow.

Suddenly, their gem glows and a giant slab opens out of the street with a fifty-feet drop. If you fell down there you'd probably never get up again.

“kind of surprised you got this far. this place isn't easy for a human to navigate,” comments Napstablook. “oh, sorry... you...can't float, can you?”

You shake your head.

Their gem glows again and floating stairs assemble. “see….i jinxed you...”

You smile awkwardly. You think you'll be walking in the dark, but glowing light strips pop on overhead as you walk then immediately turn off, the picture of efficiency.

You try to think of something to say, but your mouth is dry. You know what's coming next.

After what seems like an eternity of walking right, Napstablook's gem glows again, and half of the ceiling folds itself back. After half a second pause, stairs glitter into existence.

“this is it,” they say. “it was nice talking to you.”

You suddenly, impulsively hug them. They hug back surprisingly tightly, then turn away. You watch them go back down the passageway, until the floor slots back as if it had never left.

It's a modest place, for the ruler of a planet. Nothing but the essentials, as far as you can tell. There's a basement of some sort, and you walk down the stairs.

A modest rose garden greets you. They're every colour you can think of. There's a little strip on the ceiling to simulate sunlight. You reach out and rub the organic satiny finish of the petals between your fingertips. They're real.

It's beautiful, but it's also totally out of place. Nothing you've seen so far is organic at all except this. Not only organic. From Earth.

You look at the rose again, and think of the daisies under your feet at home. In the ruins. Balmy days spent bugcatching with…

Hot tears prick at your eyes. You shake your head, a little angry at yourself. You know what you're here for, and it's going to happen. Sooner or later.

You walk through the garden, not stopping but still breathing in the wonderful smells of earth and plant life, but there's a rustle and you almost stop dead.

This can only be Asgore.

What you notice first is the clear, diamond-shaped gem in his right hand, barely hidden by a gardening trowel. Just like the one in Toriel's left hand.

He has kind eyes, but they're clouded with worry. “Is there anything I can do for you?” he says gently.

“I want you to stop this war.” you say. “Humans and Gems can coexist.” You jab a thumb at your chest. “I'm proof.”

Asgore seems taken aback, then he assumes a grave expression.

“I made up my mind a long time ago about that,” says Asgore. He looks at you with resignation. “This war is only going to end when I'm dead or replaced.”

You wonder if he'd consider that a good thing. “I don't want to have to hurt you.”

Asgore is avoiding looking at you. “Nor I. For the good of both of us, please leave.”

“You'll hurt me when you ruin my planet while I'm still on it,” you retort. “I'm not leaving. If I have to fight you to get you to stop,” You pick up a branch from the ground. It's honestly pathetic, but it's more of a gesture than anything. “I will.”

Asgore sighs. "I believe you." In an instant, there's a sleek trident in his hands, and before you can think to move it's in your stomach.

You're in the flowerbed, soft petals brushing your forehead, what feels like the sun above you searing at your open eyes, and you die.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reading your comments makes me smile :)  
> If you're wondering why there's no Pearl- equivilent in this AU, and why mixed gem fusion is allowed and etc it's because Homeworld's nicer to its citizens since Asgore isn't a piece of shit  
> this chapter is gonna look really dumb when they eventually get to homeworld in the show, lol  
> also, credit to Chara being a Charoite gem goes to this adorable tumblr post: http://underchara.tumblr.com/post/144578848615/omg-do-the-kiddos-have-cringy-gemsonas


	10. Wait a minute

You're floating in a black void, but no time is passing.

Vines wrap around your ankles.

“I told you so,” Flowey says. “He's going to keep killing you and killing you.”

“Then I'll dodge next time. And the next time.” The necklace on your wrist is glowing a rich, bright purple.

“I guess.” Flowey opens his eyes very wide. “But when you do beat him, what then? He'll shatter. Sucks to be him, right?”

You don't speak, turning over ideas in your mind. Flowey takes this as a mute acceptance, and his next words are spoken almost like sincere advice. “Tell you what I'd do. I'd make sure I hadn't left any stones unturned.” Flower petals are floating in the dark. They glint like chips of ice in the corner of your eyes. “I mean, you can do this battle anytime. You know how it works.”

This adds up, honestly. It's solid, and it's helpful. Yet. “Why are you helping me?”

Flowey cocks his head. “You tell me.”

 

You consider.

 

_As it turns out, at the end of the corridor is something very interesting indeed. A giant glowing yellow orb on a plinth sits in the middle of the room, surrounded by tubing. It radiates power, and you feel the hairs on the back of your neck stand up._

You gape for a minute, and don't remember to say anything at all. Mettaton- Mettaton? But he's on Earth, but so are you- steps in front of you. There's the sound of footsteps, both from left and right.

You remember this. In one corner, Undyne, Alphys. In the other, Papyrus, Sans. You rake the memory over, and walk towards Sans with footsteps a little too quick. Undyne hasn't seen you.

You know what will happen if Mettaton wins this solo fight. If it's awful, you can just do the whole thing over. Right?

“Hey!” you shout.

Undyne's eyes shoot open as she sees you, and she hurls a spear almost on instinct. It goes long…

You open your eyes. You're still alive. But to your side-

There's a spear sticking out of Sans's torso. He takes an almost comical amount of time to look down. “i... didn't see this coming.” Spoken with a genuine confusion, it's probably the most naked show of emotion from him you've ever seen.

He disappears in a burst of energy, and a blue circle clinks to the ground. Alphys scurries in and scoops it up carefully.

Undyne breathes out in relief. “He's alright?”

Alphys nods. Papyrus is checking over the gem in her palms.

“Sorry, Sans.” Undyne says, genuinely apologetic. Her gaze snaps back to Mettaton. “Right. We're finishing this fight as soon and as efficiently as possible. Papyrus, fuse with me.”

Papyrus salutes. “Ma'am!”

You're a little curious despite yourself, and your eyes are wide as Undyne picks the skeleton up and they merge.

The gem is...huge, once the smoke clears. A gigantic, hulking red and green skeleton clad in shining armour, their grin almost wraps round to the other side of their head. There's a faint smell of the ocean and the air as they pull a bonelike staff out of thin air. They twirl it then rest it on their shoulder, samurai-style.

Sans was right, this is beyond unfair. Mettaton isn't even half their size.

Apparently taken with the entire situation, the fusion bursts out laughing. It's genuinely the oddest laugh you've ever heard, but it has its charms.

There's no way Mettaton can beat them alone.

But he's not alone, you realise. Alphys is here. He can easily fuse with her, can't he?

Except Mettaton doesn't even glance at her. His lips are pressed together, and his hands are balled tightly, and Alphys is looking away as though she's pretending none of this is happening.

Before you can blink, Mettaton leaps up and punches the entire fusion mid-laugh into the core.

The ship ripples with the shock. Papyrus and Undyne split immediately.

There's a swoop in your stomach. You're falling. The ship is plummeting out of the sky, and you almost fall over as another jolt hits.

“What did you do?” howls Undyne, but Mettaton doesn't seem to hear it.

Alphys thrusts Sans's gem into Papyrus's hands. “Forget the fight! I'll land the ship.” shouts Alphys over the continual error message sirens. She flips open a wall panel and a spherical green escape pod blossoms out of the floor. “You guys leave.”

“I'll get you out of there afterwards,” Mettaton tells her, and you barely hear it. His face is curiously blank. “The rest of you can go.”

Undyne looks likes she wants to argue, but she puts her arm on Papyrus's instead. Mettaton and Alphys run in the direction of the cockpit, while you turn your attention to the pod.

It's a squeeze, to put it mildly. Papyrus and Undyne are both tall, and Undyne's biceps alone probably make up half your body weight. You eye each other dubiously. You suspect you are the first human Undyne's ever met, and if she had to pick a human to meet you probably wouldn't be at the top of the list. Papyrus's eyes are darting back and forth between you, both concern and moderate fear in his face.

Undyne reaches an arm out to click the pod's black window closed, and flicks a prominent switch. It's now pitch black and you can't see a thing. Your stomach lurches as the pod clicks, drops, and is hurtled through the atmosphere. You're far closer to Undyne than you would actually like to be, considering she just tried to kill you, but you have to give her some credit- she's a lot softer than Papyrus to bump into.

There's a thud to end all thuds. The pod isn't moving anymore. Your bruise count is probably in the thousands.

You all sit still a moment, maybe three moments, savouring the fact you're alive.

Sans's gem begins to glow, and he regenerates his form in a flicker of light and harmony, only to be immediately squashed against a window for lack of space. He peels his face from the wall. “what'd I miss? seriously.”

“Lets! Not talk about this!” says Papyrus, rubbing his elbow, which five seconds ago was lodged into your armpit.

Undyne kicks the window of the escape pod (it soars a solid three metres into the air before falling down), and sunlight rushes in. She just about tears the pod in half grabbing the sides and flipping out of it.

By the time you clamber out yourself, Undyne is prodding a nearby buttercup with not a little fascination. “This is Earth, huh?” she says.

You glance over her, and almost laugh with relief. It's the city. You don't have far to go at all.

“Human, what is that strange factory in the distance?” asks Papyrus.

“That's Empire City.” says Undyne.

You stare. “How do you know that?”

“Alphys used to show me super secret Earth broadcasts on a Wailing Stone.” Undyne looks at the city through squinted eyes, like a noir detective reminiscing on past cases. “That place is full of secret pop stars and superheroes, Papyrus. Pop star superheroes who battle mutant alligators.”

“Really?” says Papyrus. “You're so well informed!”

“I try,” replies Undyne modestly, flipping her hair out of her eye. Suddenly she turns on you. “Right, human. Where are Alphys and the robot landing that ship?”

“I don't know, but they'll probably go back to their house at some point. We should meet up with them there.” This is good. If they need you as a guide, Undyne will have less chances to kill you.

“we should also get them pizza.” suggests Sans. Truly, there are worse ideas.

You start walking down the winding hill, and the others follow. You're an odd little band, but then cities tend to overlook the unusual.

“So, human, what does this place manufacture?” asks Papyrus.

“It's Frisk, and I'd imagine… pollution, mostly...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> rip Ruby in Fuchsite...you had a good run all six seconds


	11. i learned to stay true to myself

“How are we back on this couch,” you ask yourself. Quietly. It's the middle of the night.

You're curled on the couch, warm and snug and sleepy. Sans is slumped opposite you, hood over his head. Papyrus is somehow still pacing in the kitchen- does he sleep? He honestly doesn't seem the type. Undyne is...god knows where. Prison, possibly.

Between dragging the Gems around town, getting them to the city, then getting them out of the apartment so they don't completely trash the place, you're honestly exhausted.

To your surprise, you get along really well with Undyne. You like her almost as much as you like Papyrus. You're in charge, though you've never been round the city, since you're the only one who can read a street map with anything approaching clarity. You all see the really obvious touristy stuff together, and eat the really obvious touristy things, and get the usual touristy souvenirs, such as an uprooted street lamp. It's lying tied into a pretzel on the breakfast bar.

Alphys and Mettaton showed up in the evening. The apartment was… still pretty trashed, honestly, despite your best efforts, but neither seemed to mind.

Sans opens his eye. “we sat on it again?”

You snort, then hug the nest of blankets closer to you.

“do you want to know something funny?” says Sans.

“Yes, but I probably won't get it from you,” is your reply. It's not a bad quip considering how little sleep you've had.

Sans grins hollowly. “you know what we were talking about here last time? about me seeing everyone die sooner or later?”

Your fingers clench over the blanket. “Yes.”

“i've never seen you die.” His gem almost seems to glow in this light. “every single timeline I can see, you never die. everyone else, yeah, but never you. weird, huh?”

Your heart skips a beat.

“Weird.” you agree. You pull yourself off the sofa, dropping the blanket.

“going somewhere?”

“I want to talk to Alphys. See if she's okay. I never got a chance to ask.”

The Undyne/Alphys reunion had been a thing to see indeed, but after privately talking on the balcony with her for quite some time, Alphys had withdrawn to her room. Mettaton had not, but he was notably short about where, exactly, they had landed the ship.

You pick your feet up to avoid the dvds littering the ground like mines, and walk into what you know to be her room.

She's not in it.

You realise Mettaton isn't here, either.

You walk into the library room, and immediately spot something on the table. It's a tiny green square, sort of like a floppy disc, and there's a note under it.

 

_You deserve to know what's really going on. All of you. This will get you in the door, and I've modified the warp pad for it._

_I'm sorry._

_Alphys._

 

There's a list of numbers you recognize to be coordinates of some sort.

The warp pad?

The wind whips your hair around as you climb out onto the roof. It's the only place left in the apartment it can be, and you're thankfully right this time.

You stand on the polished stone of the pad, tapping a foot experimentally. You're just wondering how you should ask the others to come with you when a beam of light shoots up from the pad, cutting through the dark sky, and you begin to float.

 

When you fall back down, you're somewhere bizarre even for gem ruins.

It's a mountain range, but they're speckled with dark spots. The mountains are so tall they're capped with ice, but under your feet is just sand, crumbling and lifeless.

As you walk a little closer, you realise the spots are holes.

There's a giant machine, long and dark purple with metal pincers, lying on the ground like a discarded spider corpse coming into view on your right, and the entire range is full of them.

The path you're walking is flat and easy enough. There's another fallen machine, with several parts cannibalized out of it- the drill section is missing, you note- and then, most curiously, a smooth rectangle set into the rock.

You walk up to it to see it fully. Hewn into the side of a mountain, it's a small gateway. Curioser still, it doesn't appear to lead anywhere, only to a smooth area of stone with a heart etched into it. There's two- you lean closer- mock gems set into the heart. They resemble Alphys's and Mettaton's.

The disc in your hand glows, and so does the gem resembling Alphys's on the door.

Suddenly the gate divides itself into neat squares and folds out of the way, leaving a dark corridor stretching out far into the mountain.

You take a step inside, and reach for your phone to light the way. It isn't necessary. Like the Homeworld tunnel lights, they flip on as you walk in. The floor is sleek tile underfoot. You hear a voice and almost jump out of your skin, but you realise it's canned laughter, drifting up from far below you. Mettaton's section, presumably.

For a high-tech Gem room- and this must be bigger on the inside, you decide, there's no way this was purposely built out of a mountain- it's starkly undecorated. There's a clock on the wall that doesn't seem to work, and that's about it. You wonder why Mettaton and Alphys keep their tools and favourite things in Empire City instead of here, and unease stirs within you.

The corridor splits off into a rabbit warren of rooms. You pick a direction at random.

But a light ahead is already turned on, and flickering.

You stare, and a cold sweat is going down your back, but you keep putting one foot ahead of the other.

This creature is…appalling. It has several different hands.. several different torsos...several different heads… it's a vile multicoloured patchwork of a creature. It turns one of its head slightly, and you almost stumble- its gem is not whole, but several gem shards, mashed together.

But in its multiple eyes are fear.

“I'm not here to hurt you,” you say gently, putting your hands up.

It growls at you like a cornered animal. A dog, maybe.

You look into one of its faces. “I'm looking for Alphys. Have you seen her?”

At the sound of Alphys's name, the creature visibly perks up.

“You have? Could you lead me to her?”

It nods, and begins to run on all of its limbs. You hurry to follow, to find a big, better lit room.

There's a wall of computer terminals, a set of newspapers on top of a table, and Alphys, face pale, slumped over in a chair in front of it.

“Frisk,” she says. “You're here. Anyone else?”

“Just me.” you say. You have a million questions to ask and they're all falling over each other. You stick with the most recent one. “Who is that?” you say, gesturing to the gem mutant, who by now has ran into the corner and is reading a comic book with three hands. “Why are they like that? Who did it?”

“Me.” says Alphys. She looks completely and utterly defeated, yet her voice is almost detached.

“Please explain.” you say urgently. “Everything.”

She smiles wanly. “Yeah?”

“Yeah?”

“On Homeworld, I was just tech support. I- I wanted more... For Asgore to notice me. To do something decent for my planet. I was wasted potential brainlessly slaving in some department under Gems dumber than me, right?” Alphys folds part of the newspaper neatly in half under her thumb. “I met one of the Diamond's personal attendants, and he wanted to be something more, too.”

 _A failure and a fraud._ “You lied to Asgore?”

She nods, eyes still fixed on the newspaper. “Asgore set me a big job, since clearly I was so good at creating gems, right? To grow us some new resources, new faces with...what we had. So maybe we wouldn't need to destroy Earth.”

And yet. “What you had?”

“Shattered gems. There were more than enough in the graves alone. I had an entire team picking them up off every battlefield we could find.”

_Like the one where roses grew and swords pierced the soil?_

“What happened?”

“We grew it inside the planet's core. Humans don't use that part, right? But something went wrong.” Alphys begins chipping away at the already near-destroyed paint on her nails with one hand. “The pieces didn't want to become new separate Gems. They clumped together. If they emerge, they'll destroy the planet. I begged Asgore to let me scrap the project, but he said we need Earth's resources, and we'll get them either way.”

“That's why Mettaton wouldn't fuse with you!” you realise. _Stuck with each other._

Alphys nods mutely.

You look at the gem mutant with new eyes. “What are they?”

Alphys's voice is husky, now. “One of my early experiments. They...used to look better, believe it or not. You're the third person to have ever seen them, actually.”

You wave. The creature perks up, and moves towards you. You throw inhibition out of the window and hug them around the torso. They wriggle happily. “They seem happy enough,” you say, your arm around them. “Look, Alphys, you did something terrible, but you've done your best to protect this planet. You clearly feel horrible about this. You're not a bad person.”

Her face eases, but then slumps back, as though she can't quite believe it. “It's not worth the debate. The cluster's going to emerge. Maybe not now, but someday, assuming Asgore won't fly here and set it off himself. We're living on borrowed time. I thought I knew how to stop it, but I don't.”

You think intensely. “Does Homeworld know why you left?”

Alphys raises an eyebrow, but answers regardless. “Most don't, I think.”

“Were you two popular?” you ask.

“Are you kidding me?” says a familiar voice indeed, and a huge section of floor tiles fold back on themselves. Mettaton pushes himself out of the floorboards. “We were adored! Alphys, the Peridot who'd free us all. Her homemade battle droid. The pair of the millennia.”

A small smile spreads over Alphys's face, almost despite herself. “Yeah. We were.”

You find it vaguely amusing neither of them seem to care he was blatantly eavesdropping. Then again, you kind of broke into their house less than a week ago. “So. If Asgore needs what Earth has now, he's going to need it even more once you two start a civil war and take half Homeworld's populace with you.”

Mettaton and Alphys just look at each other with simultaneous horrified disbelief, then back at you.

“Or you pretend to, rather,” you clarify.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hmmmm


End file.
